Trolling?

[cwright]

Hi guys, 
I am new to the forum.  I do a lot of striper fishing in NC.  I do a little live bait fishing, but mostly troll with alabama rigs using lead core or downriggers.  I notice almost everyone on here live bait fishes.  We have been wanting to make a trip to smith mountain lake to give it a try.  Does anyone troll on smith or should I leave all that home and bring my bait tank?

[mwardncsu]

Defiantly some trollers out on SML. Biggest thing to be aware of is that we have a lot of timber up to 20' (and occassionally higher) so you have to watch your depth finder closely.

[johnr]

I've trolled some on SML and still do occasionally. For me, it's mostly a May - September thing. I always used leadcore to get down, and then run a 3-way off of that with spoons, sassy shads, and bucktails. In place of leadcore to get deep, I will run a deep diving stick bait or similar on braid, and trail a spoon or sassy shad off of that, via 3-way swivel.

As MWard said, we have trees. Which can be a blessing if you know how to use them. Otherwise they'll cost you if you aren't careful. My best trolling is along the old creek and river channels, which is where a lot of the trees are (just on the top edge of the old channel). Fish use them as travel corridors in parts of the lake, and I've found they are a good place to contact fish consistently.

I used to do quite well with full size umbrella rigs, but I got tired of trees eating them.

I can't tell you what equipment to bring either way. The fish are everywhere so you can probably catch them doing just about anything right now.

[stripercrazy]

I like to troll urigs when tha fish are alittle shallower in tha water column. Make sure u gota lure reteiver, u will need it. Trolling is a good way to learn tha lake.

[Red Bear]

me and my uncle troll usually. just a single sassy shad on a jig head with lead core line. he bought a bunch of umbrella rigs, put them together to just look pretty i guess. he is so afraid to lose them that he wont use them. kind of defeats the purpose of buying them in a way. i insisted on using one and lost it, he about had a fit lol

[robertpaulson]

I am headed up Friday and will be trolling Friday and catching bait sat AM before sunrise with green light. On Friday I will be pulling a variety that I have been doing very well on. I actually use my planner boards as part of it. I put out rattle traps on outside planner boards. These do better than you think and the large clips I have on my homemade planners don't pull out line. On (both sides) next in I use trolling weights with flutter spoons (I leaned this fishing Lake Michigan) about 6 feet behind weight. on the two behind boat I put out two deep diving plugs on three way swivels with a trailing flutter spoons (on this rig I almost always catch on the flutter). When I change it up I will put U-rigs on one of the back lines with large releasing floats. The reason I use the floats and the planner boards is when I catch one my other rigs do not drop to the trees and have a mess. The planner boards will hold both the rattle traps and flutter spoons without pulling out. I use to not use the rattle traps but other flutter on outside but started catching more with rattle traps even when they were not hitting the rattlers. I think the sound brings the fish up to check out then they seem to hit the flutter. I seem to catch more of the LM bass on Rattle traps, but I have caught some SBass on them as well. This way I can adjust the depth of my troll and go even slower. I use floating Rattle traps and have gotten hook up on them when stopping to bring in fish on the other line when the rattle is floating up in the water.

[johnr]

A start-stop or fast-slow trolling method can be deadly with flutter spoons 5-15' behind planer boards. The spoon will swim up towards the surface and when you slow down or stop, the spoon flutters back down like a stunned shad. Speed up, and it starts darting towards the surface again.

[Red Bear]

funny story about rattle traps, well the similar red eye shads. i was out fishing casting to the timber on the banks somewhere between the dam and cedar keys. well anyways, my 6XD crank got hooked in a tree, my uncle suggested driving the boat over to get it. i, being stubborn, said "i got it". yanked it out of the tree, came back at me 100mph and stuck through my shirt and into my jeans, one treble stopped where it was just barely stabbing me in the leg, the other stopped in my back pocket, spread apart where pulling on one to free it pulled against the other. so anyways, broke the hooks getting it out. didnt have a similar color to the crank and didnt want to change hooks out right then. so i pulled out the next closest thing i had in color which was a chrome with black back red eye shad. back to fishing, was casting and there goes the top of my two piece rod flying out in the water. i started reeling in quick, not wanting my rod piece to get caught in any timber. my uncle says "dont catch no fish like that". of course what do i do, i reel it in and here comes the top half of my rod with a 10 inch striper hooked on the red eye shad lol